Pale Rider
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Meet Harry Potter, 16. He's a hard-living junkie who likes broads, booze & brawls. Is Death coming for the Boy Who Lived? Or is Harry the Pale Rider? How can he be saved? Ask the only bad man at Hogwarts badder than he. Snape. 6th yr. HP & Naked Lunch AU
1. Amortentia

**PALE RIDER**

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just like to dirty them up.

**Chapter 1: Amortentia**

When you average member of the British Wizarding world's newspaper-buying public thought of Harry Potter, an image came to mind of a boy considerably younger than Potter now was, very clean and neatly dressed in his Hogwarts uniform with a tie, looking brave and steadfast and clear-headed, with his unruly hair mussed only in the most wholesome of ways.

So it wasn't her fear that anyone would recognise the surly, drunken young man in need of a haircut with a three day old beard, dressed in muddy Levis, an old flannel shirt with holes in it and a ripped Rolling Stones tee shirt as Harry Potter, rather than the neighbours would talk about her getting a visit from such as disreputable person at all.

Harry pounded on the door, thunderously.

If he noticed the doors to the other flats in the hallway opening, he didn't care.

"C'mon, Rita, open the fucking door! I won't stand here all night, I'll take meself and me cock elsewhere! Who've you got in there? I'll beat him senseless an' make 'im watch me do a better job than he would! Rita! Rita!"

Rita Skeeter opened the door to her flat, and ushered Harry in.

She slammed the door behind him.

Harry tried to kiss her, and she smacked him in the chops.

He looked confused.

"Wot the fuck is your problem?" he asked.

"Don't you come over 'ere fucking stinking of cheap firewhiskey, drunk off your arse pounding on me door and cursing! I'm not about to lose me job and me flat over you, you fucking rotten little prick!" Rita yelled.

Harry looked sort of crestfallen at that, and for a moment Rita thought he might leave and she didn't want that.

For one thing, she was short of stories, this week.

For another, she was actually glad to see him.

Harry may well have been young, dumb and full of come, but, especially after her taking great pains to train him, he was a lot more fun than most blokes her own age.

And he had a lot more to work with.

And she had grown fond of the arrogant little sod.

"Don't look so upset, then, Harry. I don't want to get kicked out of the building, do I?"

Rita tried to make her smile a bit brighter, but the poor lad looked awful; like he hadn't slept for days.

Harry kicked off his trainers and slouched over to the couch and fell into it.

"Lemme sleep for awhile, Rita. I been up all night, at the Horntail's Nest, and I'm so tired."

"Why don't you go take a shower, and you can sleep in the bed?" she suggested.

"I dunno if I can make it." Harry admitted.

"Well, I'll help you, then, won't I?"

***

Harry wasn't sure how he really felt about Rita.

She pumped him for stories, and called him a rotten little prick when she got angry at him, and he knew she was a horrible person, but on the other hand she bought him liquor and washed his dirty clothes and cooked hot meals for him, and he knew if he couldn't go anywhere else there was her flat waiting.

She was literally old enough to be his mother, she had been a 6th year when Harry's Mum was a 7th year, but she was still a pretty good-looking woman in a hard and brassy sort of way, and she was a real blonde and her tits were not fake.

She was very red lipstick and film noir, like a road-company Barbara Stanwyck in the movies Uncle Vernon collected.

As for Rita, she had seduced Harry because she wanted the scoop and because he'd become quite a likely young devil, but she had ended up liking him quite in spite of herself. Harry was no goody-goody; he made no bones about liking to fuck, and drink, and fight, and he had an unexpected streak of sarcastic mean-spiritedness that a land shark like Rita found endearing.

And the poor lad was something of a lost soul; he needed a woman who wasn't a swooning foetus to look after him and show him what was what in life, after all.

They were both secretive people, living secret lives and each knew what the other's secrets were, and kept them.

For all her greediness to get scoops, after Harry became her source, she never printed a word about him that he didn't tell her he could, and never anything in an unflattering light.

Rita Skeeter, in fact was one of the reasons that not many people knew about Harry's devolution into addiction, alcoholism and thuggery. She had the goods on just about everybody in the publishing world, and if any of them knew what was good for them, they weren't going to publish one unflattering word about Harry Potter.

As for the Aurors, not only would it make it look bad in the Wizarding World if it became well known that their squeaky-clean saviour was frequently no better off or better behaved than your average thug on a streetcorner in Knockturn Alley, Rita had enough on highly placed Aurors and ministry members to keep them off Harry's back, as well.

It was the least she could do for him. Maybe he hadn't had his first drink or his first puff of pot in her flat, and maybe she should have waited until he was 16, even though he wasn't about to, and maybe it was the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that had led Harry to rack and ruin, but she still felt partially responsible for what had happened.

She put his muddy, bloody, sweat-smelling, puke-spattered clothes into a plastic bag and took them down to the laundry room.

When she came back, she opened a can and cut up some vegetables and some chicken and threw in a little extra broth and fixed Harry some soup.

Soup was about the only thing he could stomach, lately.

Then she put on her Hertz Rent-A-Face and went into the bedroom with a tray.

Harry had fallen asleep smoking in bed; she took the butt from his fingers and put it out and that woke him up.

"Eat your soup, Potter." she suggested.

After he ate his soup, Harry dropped off to sleep.

Rita remained awake after she cleaned up his dishes and put his clothes in the dryer and then folded them.

For fuck's sake, the lad was only 16 and he had already made a fucking wreck of himself. He had tracks all up and down his arms, he was skinny and grey-faced and he was hardly able to walk from one place to another, let alone to get it up. Increasingly he was at her door, looking for someone to take care of him, because who else did he have? His main girl was a year younger than he was, and the Killer Queen had some fairly large problems of her own, Harry being chief among them. Looking after him had almost gotten her killed.

But Rita Skeeter, who knew everyone's secrets, knew that there was somebody besides herself who would look after Harry, somebody who may not have known how badly off he was.

While Harry slept, Rita went to the building's owlery with a piece of parchment that would put the bite on Severus Snape.

She knew that he wouldn't tell.


	2. Sectumsempra

**Chapter 2: Sectumsempra**

The sight of Draco Malfoy crying in the women's bathroom like a little girl was deeply disturbing to Moaning Myrtle.

It was a further sign that things were rapidly turning to shit at Hogwarts.

Living in a bathroom and having a sympathetic ear, as well as a major set of knockers and a willingness to get a bit kinky, a girl got to see a lot.

Lately, a lot of it had gone from bad to worse. Gone were the innocent days of when Harry mixed Polyjuice Potion or asked for Triwizard tips. Also the less innocent days when he came up to tell her about his adventures with his legions of Potter groupies, and they managed the best they could with what he had and she didn't.

Maybe it was a little sleazy, but it was fun, and it didn't do anybody any harm.

Now Harry used her bathroom to shoot up, staggered into the stall next to hers to toss his cookies when he was piss drunk, and often nodded out or passed out by the sinks.

Why her bathroom?

As he explained, he didn't want to die alone.

Now, if that wasn't bad enough, there was Draco Malfoy pushing dope to just about everybody in the school, it seemed.

He had to do that in her bathroom as well.

And now, here he was, crying hysterically.

Myrtle tried to comfort him.

"Don't cry, Draco. It's…unsettling. Just quit if you don't like it."

"Of course I don't like it! Do you think I enjoy hanging around in washrooms and distributing illicit substances? I'm a Malfoy, for fuck's sake, the heir to a great and noble Wizarding dynasty. And I'm reduced to pushing dope and haunting the bog like some kind of sad bathhouse glory hole queen. Pansy and Greg think I'm cheating on them, which I would never do, and I'm dragging the family name through the mud, peddling weed to fifth years. But I have to do it, if I ever want to extricate my family and myself from Voldemort's quagmire. It's a filthy world, Myrtle."

So complained Draco Malfoy, the most secret of Spymaster's Snape's net work of illicit operatives.

"So why don't you just tell Professor Snape that you've been selling Harry the hard stuff on the side?" Moaning Myrtle asked.

Draco was about to reply when the bathroom door swung open and Harry entered.

Myrtle noted that Harry looked sort of rough.

She had always liked the rough-looking ones, that was what got her into this mess, sweet sixteen forever, but there was something in the expression on Harry's unshaven face and in his shifty green eyes that scared Myrtle.

Even though she was dead.

She took refuge in one of the stalls, peering over the door.

"Hello, Potter." Draco began.

"Save it. Here's your fucking money. Let's have the shit." Harry said, curtly.

He had a black eye, and a scab on his lip, and two fingers taped together on his left hand. There was blood on his shirt, puke on his shoes and he smelled like ball sweat and cheap firewhiskey.

Even Draco was horrified.

"Listen, Potter, I'm not your mother, or anything, and I honestly don't gave a fuck what kind of gutter drunken junkie degenerate you become, but if Snape finds out I'm selling you the hard stuff, he'll kill me. Can't you just buy a little weed and the odd tab of acid and let that and smokes and beer do it for you?" Draco asked.

Apropos of nothing, Harry, who was now the taller and the stronger of the two, grabbed Draco by the front of his robes as he viciously slammed young Malfoy against the wall so hard that Draco's teeth clapped together.

Myrtle gasped, but no one heard her.

"Now you listen to me, you snot-nosed fairycake li'tle poofter cunt! Snape won't kill you, Malfoy. He can fuck up your spotless record and make it harder for you to become Head Boy and send a Howler or two to your old man, but he won't kill you. Mind, if you fuck with me, I'll send your head home to you old man, and he'll do the howling.I'll kill you soo as look at you, and you're not the first! So fork over the shit before I decide to do some massive amounts of GBH of your person. Slowly." Harry snarled.

"Just a suggestion, Potter. Here. Take it. Kill yourself. As long as you keep paying until you drop dead, what do I care?" Malfoy replied.

Harry took the bag that Draco held out of him, and looked at it, suspiciously.

Draco was still up to his old tricks; he'd laid off cheating Harry for a few months after Ginny's warning, but the previous week Harry had received more baking soda than coke, and an odd texture to his supposedly extremely pure bag of smack led Harry to believe that Draco was trying to give him a hot shot, or at least rip him off.

"These aren't rocks, Malfoy. I told you I wanted the smack in rocks." Harry insisted.

"Look, Potter, you get what I get. I don't make this shit, meself. I couldn't get rocks. In a fortnight, I'll get you rocks. Look, if it bothers you so much, I'll give you some of your money back."

Harry put his finger into the baggie, and placed it on his tongue.

What was in the bag was worse than heroin adulterated with strychnine.

Much, much, worse.

Harry tossed the bag to the ground and advanced on Draco.

"Baking soda and sugar! You fucking little prick! I'll do you for that!" he roared.

Draco drew his wand, and got the first syllable of "Crucio" out of his mouth before Harry had his wand out as well.

"_Sectumsempra_!" he bellowed.

To Myrtle's great horror, a huge, deep gash opened up on Draco's chest in a welter of blood and fine bits of destroyed flesh.

Draco gasped, his voice making a gurgling sound in his throat and sunk to the ground, trying to hold the jagged wound together with his hands.

Harry looked at his wand in disbelief, then looked at Myrtle, and then at Draco, lying in a spreading pool of bright red and spurting arterial blood on the floor.

His dead glassy eyes suddenly lit up with a diabolical passion.

He grinned.

"That'll teach you to cheat me, you Slytherin fuck! _Sectumsempra_!"

Draco screamed, and more bits of him sprayed in a fine cloud through the air.

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE GIRL'S LOO! HELP!" Myrtle screamed, flying out of her refuge in terror.

***

Hermione was hard at work manning her own cauldron when she noticed that the one Snape was supposed to be working on was bubbling over with some unknown and misbegotten substance.

She hastened to clean up his mess.

"Get away from that, Granger, I know what I'm fucking doing. See to your own work!" Snape snapped.

"You can't mean to tell me you done that on purpose." Hermione snorted.

"Why don't you do something novel, Granger, and shut the fuck up!" Snape replied, dourly.

Hermione tossed the rag she's used to clean up the mess right at Snape's head, clocking him right in the face.

"Right! There'll be no more of that! Fuck you, I'm going home! Fire me if you want to, you won't soon find somebody to put up with your shit, you greasy, ill-tempered manky old git!" Hermione shot back.

She took off her lab robe and goggles and threw them on the floor.

The Potions Master realised he might have been slightly out of line.

"I'm not going to fire you. I don't mean to be such a cunt, Granger. I'm just…preoccupied. You should go. See if you can find Mr. Potter, it would be nice, if he was still in a vertical position."

"Harry isn't your responsibility, Snape."

The Potions Master dumped the contents of his cauldron down the drain, and began to pace the floor, chain-smoking.

"The fuck he's not! Who else looks after that sad little shit? Not Dumbledore. He's so busy trying to groom Potter to be the last of the fucking Jedi that he ignores the little fact that the dozy bugger's just a lad, and an unstable one, at that. Not his piece of shit family. That cow, Petunia Evans! I was never good enough for her and now her own nephew isn't either. She likes to pretend her father isn't in Wandsworth Prison on murder and racketeering but she goes to see Artie just the same, doesn't she? Certainly not the Wizarding World. They want Potter to save their cowardly skins, but they neither know nor care how to keep him alive and sober long enough to do it. That only leaves me, don't it? Severus Snape and two detentions a day, that's all that separates your mate Potter from the gutter at best and the morgue at worst. When I find out where he's still getting his shit, someone in this school is going to be punished so fucking severely they won't be able to so much as think of me name without pissing their robes and crying."

Hermione was tired, she had class early the next morning, and she wanted to go home and get some sleep.

She was also at a loss for quite what she should do. It was times like these when she questioned her decision to have thrown in her lot with a grown man in his thirties, let alone a complicated bloke like Severus Snape. She had always been mature for her age, and since she was, Hermione knew that as 16 year old student she couldn't put herself in the place of her 35 year old professor who had more responsibilities than any wizard should.

"Something is really wrong, isn't it, Severus?"

"Yes. You've fucked that potion up a treat. Try and be as you are as intelligent as you act like you are, just for a moment, can't you, Granger!" Snape snapped.

Hermione swore, levelled her wand at the cauldron she was using and blasted it and its contents into blackish dust.

"You're next." She threatened Snape.

He would have tried to disarm her, but she knew a few nasty hexes she could do wandlessly, so Snape resorted to grabbing Hermione's wrist and attempting to physically disarm her.

He could, of course, have punched her in his face and then half twisted her arm off to wrest the wand from her but that was not Snape's style.

Hermione could have kneed him in the balls, or kicked him in the shins and then did her hex, but, similarly, that was not Hermione's style, so they ended up insulting one another viciously as Snape bent Hermione over the lab table in his attempted to get the wand away from her and she sort of peevishly swatted at his hands.

"Why do we always end up in this position, Granger?" Snape asked.

He had suddenly forgotten all about the wand, and Hermione could have hexed him into next week, but her intentions had suddenly changed, as well.

"Probably because there's something about me being an insufferable know-it-all and you being a ugly, snarky, greasy git that turns us both on." Hermione replied.

Of course Snape had his pants around his ankles and Hermione's knickers were dangling off the end of her right foot, which was closer to Snape's shoulders than the laws of physics would seem to actually permit when Myrtle barged into the lab.

The immediate effect of Myrtle's catching Snape actually giving Granger the old pork sword momentarily froze all three of them in a bizarre tableau.

Then, Myrtle snapped out of it and began hysterically narrating to Snape what was going on in her bathroom.

"I'm coming with you." Hermione insisted, sliding off the table.

"No. You stay here, Granger. You don't want any part of this."

Snape grabbed a flask as he zipped up his pants and followed Myrtle back to her bathroom.

***

To Harry's credit, when Draco's throat opened up like it had been torn apart by a dull handsaw in a veritable gusher of violently spurting blood, and Harry could actually see his larynx vibrating as he wetly screamed, it snapped him out of his strung-out rage and he came out of his drug-addled fog to find that he had effectively torn Draco Malfoy into screaming bloody bits.

Harry resisted the urge to puke his guts out and knelt down beside Draco with a wad of paper towels, trying vainly to stop up his horrible wounds.

"Oh fuck! I…I…Jesus Christ…I…I'll take you to the Infirmary! You hold your chest shut and I'll hold your throat shut. Fuck me, look at all this blood! Don't die, Malfoy, for fuck's sake, don't die!"

Harry was about to pick Draco up when Snape swept into the room, wearing his lab robes over his Levis.

He looked at the two frightened young men, and the bloody mess, and an expression of anguish briefly flitted across his face.

"Professor Snape, I didn't mean to! Honest!" Harry cried.

"I'm sure you didn't. Get out of the way, Potter."

To Harry's surprise, Snape knew a counterspell, which he cast in a singsong Elvish, in words that Harry couldn't understand.

The wounds shut, and Snape applied some kind of potion on a cloth to the scars the wounds left, and Draco appeared to be good as new.

"Am I dead?" Draco asked his godfather, weakly.

"No. Here, drink both of these vials of blood replenishing potion. I want you to do me a favour, Draco. Change your clothes and take the rest of the week off. Go home and stay with your parents until Monday. Have your medi-wizard take a look at you, and do like you would if you had flu. I'll make sure that you don't have to push any more dope. Nothing like this will ever happen to you, again." Snape promised.

"What about Potter?"

"I will take care of Potter."

Harry missed most of this conversation, as he was busy puking his guts out in one of the stalls.

The coppery smell of Draco's blood was making him sick, and the unspeakable feeling of being covered in same, still warm, was horrifying.

Harry held onto the toilet like it was a life preserver.

He hadn't slept in three days and he'd been drunk for a week, incredibly drunk, to try and stave off the withdrawal symptoms that were creeping up on him as he stretched his meagre supply of dope out further and further.

Harry was fairly surprised that he had so much puke in him; all he'd eaten in the past four days was three donuts, some soup and six Hershey bars.

That was why the appearance of the green stuff that burned out his mouth didn't surprise him.

He finally got done puking, but his stomach began to hurt and so did his mouth and he was feeling pretty dizzy.

Dizzy like he was going to black out.

He started to fall forward, but then the Good Samaritan showed up again.

Someone at Hogwarts was always collecting Harry when he was passed out, or sick, or hurting, someone who always carried him to bed, undressed him, even washed him up if it was necessary. Harry was usually either semi-conscious or knocked out at the time, so he had no idea who his patient friend was, only the idea that when the Good Samaritan came, he was safe.

This time, though, Harry wasn't so far out of it.

"Come on, Potter. Up you get."

Harry couldn't believe it.

"You, Snape? You?"

"Potter, who the fuck else that isn't dead has ever given a shit about you but me?"

***

Dumbledore knew that the way he kept shaking his head was infuriating Snape, but he couldn't help it.

"With all due respect, Albus, I went to the fucking dogs when I was Potter's age because you couldn't see it, and now Potter's doing the same because you can't see it happening to him, either. I was in this office earlier this year telling you about this, and you gave me that youthful high spirits bullshit. Potter tried to kill Malfoy in the loo last night because Malfoy tried to sell him baking soda instead of heroin. He's got tracks on his arms, and on the backs of his knees, and his school trunk is full of empty bottles of St. George's Dragon and Hell's Horntail. This has gone far beyond fucking high spirits. When I had him in close to permanent detention, he had his shit together. If you don't let me keep that boy in fucking lockdown every moment that he is not in class, he will die a horrible, degrading, painful death. And he may take a few punters with him." Snape finished.

"Severus, how did this happen?" Dumbledore asked.

"Quickly."

"Do what you have to." The Headmaster replied.

***

Harry knew that the jig was up; he had known it all night, and he was strangely not afraid when Snape came back from Dumbledore's office carrying a paper cup with a grim look on his face.

"Drink this, Potter."

"What is it?"

"Methadone."

Harry gulped the contents of the glass.

"How long do I get this for?" he asked.

"Until you're well enough to get clean. It's the end of the rainbow for you, Potter. And this time, there will be no mistakes. You and I are going to be room-mates. When you are not in class, or at meals, you're going to be on this couch. There will be no drugs, not even pot, and there will be no drinking. I don't care if you smoke as long as you don't smoke mine, the house-elves will provide you with coffee, and I'm not adverse to Miss Weasley visiting you. But you are going to study, and you are going to work, with Miss Granger and I, as our lab assistant."

"Because the Wizarding World needs me alive?" Harry sneered.

"No. Because your mother was my best friend in the world. She died protecting you; the least I can do is make sure she didn't do it for nothing, you spoilt little shit. And don't get mouthy with me. When we're not in class, I'm a man and you're a man, and if you get stroppy with me, I'll belt you. And you're not tougher than I am, Potter." Snape sneered back.

Harry almost smiled. One thing about the wicked old screw, Snape was a fucking vicious thug Scouser bastard and he never made any bones about it.

Maybe when he was feeling better he'd try the Slytherin bastard out, see who was tougher.

And it was only a year or so of sobriety, soon he and Voldemort would both be dead.

And Snape did have a telly, and Harry didn't have a choice.

"Can I have some more of that stuff?" Harry asked.

"No."

"Fuck."

"That'll take your mind off it, Potter. So will the telly. You'll be going back to classes tomorrow."


	3. Avada Kedavra

**Chapter Three: Avada Kedavra**

"I'll just fucking bet you'll knock me teeth down me throat! Why you can't hardly stand, let alone…"

WHAM!

Harry commonly didn't hit punters as hard as he could, but just to test his strength, to see how his recovery was coming, he let this one have it.

Teeth flew through the air like red and white Chiclets, and Blaise Zabini flew across the Hog's Head like a spell had been cast on him, and hit the wall.

Hard.

Harry watched with satisfaction as his enemy's unconscious form slid down the wall to the floor like the snake he was.

"Brilliant. Fucking brilliant." He crowed.

"Blimey, Harry that was a good one!" Ron exclaimed.

"Nice blood spatter an' tooth distribution." Ginny agreed.

"That's the old stuff, Potter. Glad to see you're on the mend and off the hard stuff. Here's the night's pint of Merlin's, you've earned it." Aberforth encouraged him.

Harry's hand felt like it had been stung by a nest of bees, but a little "episkey" fixed that.

"Yeah. Looks like I got the old right hook, back."

Harry drank his beer and talked to Ron, but the whole time, he was thinking about what else he'd gotten back.

After he was done, he handed Ron a golden galleon.

"Here you go, Ron. Pay for mine, an' yours too. Let's go home, Ginny." He said.

"Well, you don't have to ask me twice. G'night, Ron."

Ron decided not to think that Harry was talking about his sister, and bought three butterbeers, one for himself and one for Fred and one for George.

"Nice to have the old Harry back." Fred said.

"The girls will be happy." George agreed.

"Can we not talk about that? I mean, Ginny's our sister." Ron said.

"I meant the rest of them." Fred said.

"Oh, that makes me feel better!" Ron countered.

***

Albus Dumbledore hated to be so at odds with Severus, but he knew what had to be done.

"It will only be for a few months. Harry's doing fine, now. In a month or so, he'll find out the truth and everything will be alright."

There was so much anger in Severus dark eyes that they looked completely black, like a shark's.

"Fine? Albus, he's not fine! He's still on methadone! He's only just begun to look like a human being again, to be able to get back to eating and walking and fucking and speaking and all those other normal motor functions! Potter has a long way to go towards fine! And he's begun to trust me, which is important if I'm ever going to get him ready for normal life, let alone war! He's fine because he's had no opportunity at all to get drunk or score and he's not ready to go out on his own and stay sober! The tinest shock could undo every gain he's made in the past month and a half. And seeing his Potions Master murder his Headmaster in cold blood before a gang of bloodthirsty Death Eaters is a rather large fucking shock!" Snape raved.

"He has to see it."

"Fine! Then let him in on the plan!"

"I can't."

Snape exploded.

He smashed both of his fists down on Dumbledore's desk, screaming, and then flew into a wild rage.

"Damn you, Albus! Fuck me, damn you to Hell, you stubborn old bastard! You and that fuck, Tom Riddle, you've been playing fucking draughts with me life since I was younger than Potter! Now you're doing the same with his! Well fuck you, and fuck your fucking war! If that boy dies, it's on your head, Albus! Him and Lily and James! You've got blood-- blood, yes, blood!-- on your saintly old hands, and you're about to have a lot more of it! I will desert you, Albus. I'll leave this school, and this war and I don't care who wins and who loses and the only time I'll come out of hiding is to murder whichever of you or Tom Riddle isn't killed by the other! I'll make you and every witch and wizard and familiar that walks or crawls or flies sorry you were ever born if Potter dies! Do you understand me, Albus! Do you?"

"Severus, please…"

"No! Goddamnit, to Hell, no! I am Death, Death d'you hear? Behold, a Pale Rider! I am Death, and Hell's coming with me! Hell's coming with me!" Snape fired back.

He swept out of the office in a paroxysm of rage, leaving Albus Dumbledore in shock and dismay.

He spoke to his secret wife about it later than night, unable to sleep.

"He's never spoken to me like that, Minerva. You can't imagine how horrible it was to hear our Severus speak to me like that."

"Albus, he's afraid for Harry's life. You don't like to face these things. I told you and told you when Severus was a lad and he was mixed up with Tom Riddle and with drugs that I was afraid for his life and you didn't want to face that, either. Perhaps you should let Harry in on your plan."

"I can't, Minerva. At this point in his life, not only can't poor Harry be trusted, he's much safer not knowing than knowing. Drugs and all."

"I just wish it was all over, Albus."

"So do I."

***

Hermione was in the library, studying for her finals when, abruptly, Treacher apparated in front of her with a crack.

She spilled ink all over herself.

Before she could ask him what was going on, the usually calm house elf began tugging on her arm and babbling.

It was something about Snape and him being in trouble, but Hermione was not prepared to see him sitting on the floor in his grubby, greying y-fronts, with his head in his hands, motionless.

"Severus?"

She wasn'r even sure what she should do, so she went and sat beside him.

She'd never seen him so upset; she was afraid to touch him.

"Severus? Are you sick?"

He was quiet for quite some time before he replied.

"Yes. I'm sick. And tired. Hermione, what if I was to suggest to you, that we grab Harry, go home to Liverpool, and quietly live like Muggles for the rest of our lives?"

"If that's what you think is best, Sev, I'll knock him out, pack him up, and we'll go. I'm with you. Up the 'Pool."

Snape picked up his head from his hands.

"Hermione, in a few days, you are going to see me do something shocking and unforgivable, and it might just destroy Harry, completely. I'm going to have to ask you to trust me, to say nothing to no one, and wait, maybe for a month or so, for me to call you to go to war. Can you be involved in that?"

"Tell me what you're going to do, and what you want me to do, and I'll do it." Hermione promised.

Snape told her of Dumbledore's plans, and of what he intended to do if Harry lived, and then, what he intended to do if Harry died as a result of them.

Hermione agreed.

Completely.

***

Harry left Privet Drive in Uncle Vernon's car, and he drove into Muggle London, to a certain pub he'd been to the previous summer.

He bought six bottles of whiskey, three grammes of cocaine, four grammes of heroin, and two dime bags of pot.

Money was no object; Harry had nothing but money.

Living was no object; Harry had nothing but contempt for life.

He wanted to be drunk, he wanted to be high, and in-bewteen he wanted to get his cock into as many bints as he could and get his fists into as many faces as he could.

He wanted to drive Uncle Vernon's car as far and as fast as it would go, and he didn't care if he lived or if he died.

Harry wasn't sure if what he had seen in the tower was real or a show, if it was true or false. But it meant that either Snape had betrayed him and Dumbledore or Dumbledore had betrayed him and Snape and he was tired of it all and no longer gave a toss about anything.

"Harry! Harry James Potter, where do you think you're going in my car?" Uncle Vernon was yelling.

Kind of funny, him wheezing and running his fat arse down the path.

"Straight to Hell, if I'm lucky. Don't worry about the car, I'll pay for any damage."

"I'm not worried about the bloody car! Harry! Harry!"

***

The days seemed to run into one another.

Often, Harry went to Muggle London, where he wasn't known, and he fought and caroused and picked up women and was picked up by women and sometimes he brought them home, sometimes two or three of them, and they drank and got high and all fucked one another in his room, if they were capable.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never said anything to Harry.

They were terrified of him, now; he had become all the things they feared he would become and it terrified them.

Eventually, Harry ran out of the money he took from his account at Gringotts, and someone had frozen his account.

Only one thing left for Harry to do.

He began stealing from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

She caught him, eventually, and when she tried to stop him, Harry wrenched Aunt Petunia's arm around and he hit her.

Her face went all grey and she looked bleedy and fell on the floor.

Harry supposed Uncle Vernon had every right to blow his top, and he thought he might have broken one of his Uncle's ribs, but Uncle Vernon surely broke one of his, but then again that could have happened later when Harry was driving to town in Uncle Vernon's car that he stole.

It was like that Jethro Tull song about being too old to rock and roll and too young to die and Harry took the curve too fast and the car went arse over teacups and arse over teacups and arse over teacups and Harry hurt all over, especially in his leg, which was all smashed and bleeding and crushed and twisted. But he used his other leg to kick out the window and blagged them on the Knight Bus that he was nobody and he was drunk and they took him to the Horntail's Nest in Knockturn Alley.

The good old Nest, and Harry holed up there, in one of the rooms over the pub.

He sold his spare pair of glasses to an American collector of Potterbilia and sent the money to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, for the deductible on the car and to make up for the money he stole from them. He got Dudley on the phone when they were out and met him in London, walking with a cane, one of those with the hollow where you could hide your wand, or a sword, with a silver gryphon head.

Spent just a little of the money on himself, had to save just a little.

Dudley called him back a few days later and he met Harry at the same pub, and he had some food and clean clothes from home.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon weren't mad at Harry.

They didn't want him to come home but they had found a place for him at a rehab.

Harry wouldn't go, so he kept meeting Dudley and sending his dirty clothes to Privet Drive and got them back clean with more food.

With Harry back in the Wizarding World, a newly-loyal Kreacher and the always loyal Dobby immediately went to his side.

The two elves were somewhat shocked and disgusted at the squalor in which Harry lived, and worried about his condition, but they said nothing of it to Harry and refused to be sent away.

They looked after him and cleaned up as best they could, hoping that help would come soon.

Sometimes, Harry thought of Ron, and Ginny, and Hermione.

Lying on his bed, he missed them all.

Taking off his belt and tying off his arm, pulling it tight, real tight.

And he knew they would be really upset when he died.

Patiently holding the spoon over the candle, he had all the time in the world.

Time for a drink while he was waiting, green smoke out his nostrils, the burn while the viscous liquid slid down his throat.

But Ron and Ginny had their family, and Lord Malfoy was on their side, somebody told him, and when he bought or weaselled his way out of Azkaban, he'd see to Ginny, and he'd look after her.

It was one of those old-fashioned metal needles; he'd bought it in an old scrumdum dump in Knockturn Alley, but it worked well enough.

Hermione had her Mum and Dad, and if it turned out he wasn't a villain she had wicked old bastard Snape, and she had Ron and the Weasleys.

And they all had each other, didn't they?

And Harry had Horntail and heroin, and he was going to be fine, and so were they.

Harry flexed his hand, and made a fist, and slipped the antique spike into his vein, and pushed the plunger in.

"Oh shit!" he gasped.

Easing back into the pillows on the lumpy mattress, feeling the rush spread through his whole body.

A little blood when he pulled the needle out, but he felt fine, just fine.

Everything was going to be just fine.


	4. Inscendio

**Chapter Four: Inscendio**

Albus Dumbledore, recently deceased, and soon to be the acting Minister or Magic, with any luck, had a lot on his mind.

In the good news column, the Ministry operation was poised to go very well, and he felt as though with this newest strategic accomplishment, combined with the ruse of his death at the hands of Severus Snape, and various other bits of disinformation that were in circulation, that they could turn the tide in the war against Tom Riddle.

In the bad news column, the cost at which these victories would be purchased was Harry Potter's sanity and perhaps even his life.

And without Harry, there could be no ultimate victory. Indeed, Dumbledore thought, if he had destroyed Harry in the blind pursuit of victory, then it was a victory he didn't deserve.

Severus had been more right than the headmaster had imagined about the effect on Harry of the trauma of seeing his professor murder his headmaster.

Any headway that Severus had made with the lad's crippling addiction, as well as any modicum of trust Harry had grudgingly begun to have in his reformed junkie professor had evaporated in a rumoured grand spree of excess and debauchery.

Relations between the venerable old wizard and his angry ward were extremely strained.

At first, Severus would not even speak to Albus.

He had packed up a few things and simply left Hogwarts, and he wasn't at the Snape-Prince family home in Liverpool.

Minerva had taken up the task of searching for her son by law, and she was more successful.

An owl from Hermione Granger revealed that Snape had retreated to his grandfather Severus Prince's cottage in the Carpathian mountains, and she was there with him.

To say that Snape was in a black mood was an understatement.

Minerva went to the cottage in person and remonstrated with her son by law to give his adoptive father a chance to try and undo some of the damage he'd done.

Severus agreed, grudgingly, to continue to act for Dumbledore and his cause, so long as running Potter in and freeing Luke Malfoy were his first orders of business.

He refused to go through with the Ministry operation until both goals were accomplished.

Snape was still not speaking to Dumbledore, but at least it was a start, and Albus agreed with him, wholeheartedly.

It was a terrible injustice regarding Lucius Malfoy.

Like his son, Draco, Lord Malfoy had defected from Voldemort's cause, and was involved in espionage under Severus Snape. At great personal risk he had provided sensitive information that made the Ministry of Magic operation possible, but, so deep was he undercover that he had been arrested and sent to the newly fortified Azkaban around the time of Dumbledore's alleged death, and had languished there for months.

Severus, of course, was in the best position to assist Harry and Lucius, but because of his role in the ongoing operations, he was unable to act in person.

He sent, therefore, on his behalf, an emissary from the Order of the Phoenix whom he thought was uniquely qualified to handle both matters.

Her first task was to visit Malfoy in Azkaban, as even Snape's network of spies were as yet unable to locate Harry Potter.

No one really knew if he was dead or alive.

***

Ginny was not afraid to go to Azkaban, let alone to visit there.

She was every bit as tough as anyone inside, and the trolls, giants, and werewolves that now guarded the newly reinforced prison didn't frighten a newly-minted yeomen in the Knights of Albion.

She walked with a troll guard down the gauntlet of the hallway between the cells.

"Me smash head good. Explode like melon." The guard was saying.

"Yeah, Death Eaters have a tendency to do that. Knock 'em about a little and they bust open like rotten fruit. Splot!" Ginny agreed, having recently messily dispatched a large number of them.

"Splot! Huh! Huhhuhhuhhuhhuh!"

The troll began to chuckle and Ginny laughed with him.

As they passed on of the cells, the prisoner inside heckled Ginny.

"Oooo look at her. Isn't she pretty? Wouldn't you like it if I fucked you, Red, you and your ginger bush!"

"Shut up foul face! Me smash!" the troll howled.

"Let me." Ginny encouraged him.

"Ok. I look other way." The troll said, and casually strolled off.

She walked over to the cell, and beckoned to the man.

When he came close enough to the bars, she grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him sharply forward, smacking his face against the bars.

She grimaced at the thin, sickly smell of the long-imprisoned man's weak blood.

"Only if I could kill you, after. I don't think the troll would mind. Shall I come in?" Ginny asked.

She smacked him against the bars again.

The inmate shrank back, fear in his eyes.

"Ginny, how many times must you be told not to play with your food?"

The troll had been replaced by Ginny's contact at Azkaban, a werewolf named Perseus Fitzgerald.

He was a Knight in the Knights of Albion, and an old friend of Remus Lupin.

"Perry, how can you stand the stink in this place? Even their blood smells foul." She said, as they walked.

"I keep telling meself these pigs deserve worse. Still, it's not easy, being surrounded by the stench of death, constantly. Mind, watch out for the trusty. He's not one of us, he's a nasty piece of work." Fitzgerald warned her.

***

Ginny sat in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes before a sleazy, evil trusty right out of central casting brought Luke into the drab little room.

He was shackled hand and foot, wearing coarse prison robes.

He hadn't shaven in quite some time, and wore his blond beard in a braid. His long hair was not tied back, and he strode into the room like he owned the prison.

"Take your filthy hands off me, you disgusting piece of lowborn slime! I'll strangle you with these chains!" Malfoy roared at him.

The trusty quailed under the verbal assault.

Lord Malfoy had long established himself as a wizard not to be trifled with at Azkaban. The guards conveniently overlooked most inmate violence, and they quietly buried the man he had destroyed with several wandless uses of the _sectumsempra_ spell, not to mention his unfortunate accomplice, whom Malfoy strangled with his bare hands.

Slowly.

It took both of them a considerably long time to die, and Malfoy had intended it to be so.

Since he and Snape and Crabbe and Goyle had taken care of his last clients and Malfoy's tenure as a rent boy in Lord Voldemort's service had thereby ended, many, many years ago, he vowed that no man would ever make a punk out of him, again.

Now everyone in Azkaban knew how sincerely he had meant it.

Indeed, when Lord Malfoy was walking, every prisoner in Azkaban, and even some of the guards, gave him a wide berth.

And the trusty was obviously terrified of him.

Luke gave the man one of his imperiously murderous looks, and even as Ginny felt a little twinge in the old fur pie, the trusty quailed and simpered, wringing his hands and grovelling like a regular Uriah Heep.

The things that turn me on.

Oh well.

Can't buy me love, right?

"Sorry, milord. Do you object to being alone with him, Miss?" the guard asked.

"Oh no. I've been alone with him plenty of times." Ginny replied.

The trusty slunk away, and Ginny sat down on the other side of the table from Malfoy.

Lucius Malfoy seemed just as much as ease in a waiting room at Azkaban as he did at his own Manor.

"Keeping out usual Thursday appointment, I see, Poppy." Luke said, wrly.

"You bet your arse I am, Luke. Drink this."

Without asking why, Malfoy accepted the Verisateum.

"Are you with us?" Ginny asked.

If the answer was no, she was going to fulfil their bargain and kill him.

With the Killing Curse so his family could have an open casket funeral, as they agreed.

"Yes."

"Right. Then we're going over the wall."  
Ginny produced her wand and aimed it at his chains.

"_Reducto_!"

They fell broken at his feet.

"Are you mad? I've made all the necessary arrangements to buy my way out of this hell-hole. Other than the fact that you're gearing up for your grand killing spree and you'd like to get a jump on getting your greens, what possible benefit could there be in breaking me out of here?"

"You know I'm mad, Luke. That's beside the point. Listen, Snape sent me. It's an inside job. You can't be released without it lookin' fishy, and buying your way out won't make as big of a splash. So I'm to break you out. C'mon, let's kill something. Like you say, I've got a lot of killing to do in this next battle, and if I want to be up to par, I'd best sharpen me claws." Ginny enthused.

Lucius smiled, and shook his head.

"Well, my little textbook on sociopathy, we can start with that trusty. He's a sex case. Rapes the boys and the women. I've been meaning to get to him, but if I kill him, I can't buy my way out. That won't be necessary, now, however."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes and smiled, diabolically.

"Brilliant. You can have him, Luke. Be my guest."

She got up on the table.

"No! No, stop! Help, someone, help!" Ginny began to shout, tearing at her robes.

Catching on, Malfoy tore at them a little more.

He pushed Ginny further back on the table and pushed her legs open.

"Oooo, Luke! Why don't yer make it look real, then?" she suggested.

She gave him a hungry look, and Malfoy found it difficult to restrain himself.

"Try to look like this might upset you." He quipped.

Ginny began to scream, kick, and squirm.

The trusty came in.

"I told you not to be alone with him." He chuckled.

"Just give me a minute, trusty. I'll hold her down for you." Lucius panted, as Ginny continued to writhe and kick.

"That's quite nice of you, Lord Malfoy."

When the trusty stepped into place, Lucius put his hands on either side on the man's head and broke his neck, even before the odious wizard could get his pants down.

Ginny had never seen him kill anyone, before.

He was quite good at it.

"That was brilliant, Luke! Now, it'll be awhile before they come and look for him, don't you think?" She said, showing no signs of wanting to change her position.

"Later, Poppy. Best for us to get out of here. Besides, we don't want to mix our pleasures."

Ginny slid off the table and transformed, shredding the balance of her clothes. Roaring, she crashed through the door, and Malfoy hadn't hardly moments to climb onto the huge lioness' back before she began racing towards the light of day at the end of the long tunnel like hallway.

One of the werewolf guards shouted at her to follow him, and Ginny did so.

Most of the guards got out of the way, but one troll tried to block their path.

The lioness and the werewolf, who rapidly transformed, tore into it with her claws, laying it open.

Ginny continued on her heedless rampage, charging through a few Death Eaters who were trying to hop on and escape with them with cruel claw and deadly fangs.

One managed to climb onto Ginny's back, with a shiv in his hand.

Lucius trumped him.

He pointed the palm of his hand at the wizard, forcefully uttering the Death Curse.

"_Avada kedavra!"_

The Death Eater's body crumpled off Ginny's back in a flash of green light.

Lord Malfoy was one of only a handful of living wizards who could perform the Death Curse without a wand.

***

Suddenly, he and Ginny met with daylight; Lucius had to shield his eyes as he had grown uncomfortable with it.

They crashed into the sea, and Ginny transformed back to her human shape.

"Swim for that buoy!" she directed him.

As soon as their hands touched the buoy, Lucius found himself far from the grim choppy sea and grimmer Azkaban, and in the misdst of the forests surrounding Hogwarts.

It was a beautiful summer day.

The sun shone, the birds sang, the trees were green, and he was a free man.

Ginny stretched in the warm sun like a lazy cat, naked and unashamed.

She didn't get to change positions, as Luke was behind her before she'd even stretched her arms out.

She finished her stretching, and laughed a little as he moaned.

They both cast divesto at once.

"You do know if you try to bugger me I'll rip you open like I did that guard, don't you, Luke?" she reminded him.

"That's not what I've been dreaming about for three months. I could have had that in prison. And you know I would never do such a thing. To anyone. Least of all you."

Lord Malfoy turned her over on her back, and ran his hands over his Gryffindor lioness' body, with lust and appreciation.

She purred, and her skin undulated beneath his hands.

"Poppy, the Devil himself must have made you in the hottest forge in the deepest pit of Hell." He said, admiringly.

"You know just what to say to a girl, Luke." Ginny replied, pulling him down into her long red hair.

***

They were both sleeping in the sun when they were sharply awakened by a boot nudging them each in the ribs.

"Nice lot you are. Fucking in the grass, snoozing in the sun? There's a war on, yunno. And you're both late for it. Get up, then! No time to lose. Put these on, Luke. Take this robe, Major Weasley. Well, don't fucking stand there gawping! Come with me."

Snape was a man of very few words when there was work to be done.

"I'm not sure I understand what's going on, Sev."

"I'm saving your arse. Azkaban might as well be Tom Riddle's parlour as it is prison. You were going to be exposed as a double agent and killed by the guards you and the Killer Queen assassinated. And they were going to keep your money. We had to get you out." Snape explained

"Really? I thought she did that for fun, and you were just letting her have a few kicks."

"I don't doubt you two had a lot of fun, breaking out of jail and killing people and having a good shag. Just like Bonnie and Clyde." Snape laughed.

"Yeah. Just like Bonnie and Clyde." Ginny echoed, excitedly.

She liked the sound of that.

"Calm yourself, Miss Weasley. You don't really want to add hybristophilia to your retinue of psychiatric disorders, do you?" Snape asked.

"I dunno. It's a kick I haven't tried." Ginny answered.

"That's my girl." Luke said, admiringly.

Snape suddenly imagined the ultraviolent Ginny Weasley being married to his psychopathic best friend, and to brutal badass Harry Potter.

He smiled to himself, and laughed.

"We'd be quite a family, wouldn't we, Sev?" Malfoy quipped, getting the joke.

"A regular Manson Family Picnic, Luke." Snape replied.

They both laughed and although Ginny didn't quite get the joke, she laughed, too.

Sometimes, it was easier on her, hanging around with Slytherins.

"What's the next job, Snape? Do we know anything about Harry?"

"He's been in contact with the Dursleys. That'll be your first stop."

"Do you think he's…"

"Dead? Possibly. And if he is, there will be hell to pay."

"I'll say. An' you can count on me to put my two cents in, Snape."

"No matter who it's due to?"

"No matter who."

Snape looked over at Malfoy.

"I'm sure he's not dead, Sev. He's a survivor. Like his father."


	5. Reparo

**Chapter Five: Reparo**

With Harry still missing, Snape dispatched Ginny to Number 14, Privet Drive, to meet with the Dursley family.

For her part, Petunia Dursley had not been looking forward to meeting up with the angry scowling face of Severus Snape once again, so she was relived to see that it was Harry's little red-headed girlfriend who had come to find out what became of him.

As much as she resented the Wizarding World, Petunia was glad to see that someone was willing to help. She and Vernon had always treated Harry strictly, hoping they could quash the wildness in him; but he had, unfortunately lived down to their worst expectations and then some.

"Come in, Miss Weasley."

Petunia looked around.

This was all? They sent a girl Harry's age?

Mrs. Dursley was outraged.

"Don't tell me you're here on your own! Aren't you people going to do something about Harry? This is why I never wanted him to have anything to do with you people! We tried to raise him right, tried to makes sure this wouldn't happen to him. And you people, you did this to him! Not you, personally, young lady, but, these…these wizards! You tell that Albus Dumbledore I don't believe for one minute that he's dead! He's made a shambles of this family and he had better do something about it! Better yet, he ought to let Severus do something about it! Are you here for Severus? Has he sent you? Has Dumbledore?" Petunia demanded.

"Snape ought to come in person. Harry is as much his responsibility as he is ours." Vernon Dursley sniffed.

"Professor Snape is away on a mission. He wanted to come in person, but he can't. He wants me to tell you that he was forced into his role in the events that ruined Harry and that he's personally prepared to do whatever is necessary to help Harry. Is he here?"

Vernon looked at the floor.

"No. And we didn't throw him out. He left. We tried to get him help, but he doesn't want it. We're not sure where he is." He said, guiltily.

"You don't know what he was like! It's not our fault. We've tried and tried with the boy, we can't help it he's got bad blood!" Petunia exclaimed.

"Yes I do, Mrs. Dursley. I'm his girlfriend, remember?" Ginny reminded her.

"He was worse for us! He had to be! You wouldn't stay with a boy who takes on the way Harry has! He stole from us, and he used drugs, openly, right in front of us! He was drunk all the time, and he'd come home in the wee hours of the morning with these awful scrubbers with him, the worst kind of girls you can imagine! He was arrested twice, once for fighting, once for driving drunk. Vernon and I bailed him out twice. Finally, he got violent. He was a different boy; I never saw him like this. It was terrible, he hit me. He broke my arm! He hit Vernon, too! Blacked his eye and bloodied his nose and cracked one of his ribs. I still didn't ask him to leave, but Vernon and I locked our doors, we were terrified of what he would do. Dudley used to take care of him. Until he left. He drove off in our car in the middle of the night and the next day we got a call from the police. The car was totalled and there was blood all over the front seat. We had the police search the area, we were sure Harry was dead. Then he called here. He was drunk, as usual, but he sounded contrite; he said he'd mail us a cheque to pay the deductible on Vernon's insurance and for our trouble. The last I heard from him was when he sent us a cheque for a thousand quid. We never cashed it. God only knows where he got the money. Harry still speaks to Dudley, so my son takes the new car to this pub in London every week to meet Harry. We send him some food, and I still wash his clothes. Dudley brings them home. They're always filthy, all over blood and vomit and God only knows what else. We don't even know where he is." Petunia rambled.

At the end, she broke down and began to cry.

"You people, you killed my sister, and you took her son away from his father and now you're killing him, too!" she yelled.

She turned her face against her massive husband for comfort.

"We never meant to be mean to Harry. We tried to be strict with him so he wouldn't go astray. If you had left him with us, if you had never meddled in his life with this magic business, he would never have known about any of this, and he would have grown up to be a decent young man. What do you people propose to do about me nephew? If you don't do anything, I will. I have some friends who are with the police. I'll have him arrested and sent to rehab. To the army, if that doesn't work. Anything!" Vernon pronounced.

"I know where he's gone. Me brother and I and Harry's other friend, Hermione, we'll go and get him. He'll be safe. We'll look after him." Ginny promised.

"No offence, young lady, but Harry needs responsible adults to look after him." Mr. Dursley insisted.

"They will be." Ginny promised him.

She immediately reported back to Professor Snape via the floo network, and Snape contacted Dumbledore the same way.

When she got back to the acting Minister's secret headquarters, her mother and father were there, and so was a tall, willowy, black-haired witch whom Ginny recognised as Eileen Snape, who ran Prince's Potions with her father, Severus Prince.

What were Snape's mother and grandfather doing involved in this?

And why had the Dursleys insisted that he should be?

Ginny sniffed the air, an old idea rattling around in her brains.

She decided to keep it to herself, for now.

"Ginny, your parents have agreed to let Harry stay at the burrow. The Order wishes to keep his condition secret so as not to give hope to our enemies. Eileen is a Master Magus in the Third Degree of both Alchemy and the Magick of Science, she's as qualified to look after Harry as any healer at St. Mungo's. I know it will be painful for the three of you to do, but you and Ron and Hermione have to go now and find Harry. When you've found him, floo him to the Burrow. Mrs. Snape and your parents will be waiting." Dumbledore told them.

Ginny let Hermione and Ron leave and then she leaned over Dumbledore's desk.

"You lot can't fool me. The nose knows. And it smells awfully familiar in 'ere." She said.

Then she left.

"I keep telling you, Albus, this kind of secret won't keep forever." Eileen told him.

"I know, Eileen. But it has to keep a while longer." Dumbledore pronounced.

Hermione let Ron go ahead of her and Ginny and pulled Ginny aside.

"You've figured it out, haven't you?" she asked.

"You too?" Ginny asked.

"Certainly. It's obvious. The only reason everybody hasn't figured it out is that they're not looking for it."

"Still, I think we should keep schtum about it, for now. I don't think Harry could take it."

"What are you two whispering about? C'mon!" Ron encouraged them.

The two girls exchanged worried looks, and hurried after Ron.

They decided to stop at the Leaky Cauldron for a butterbeer, so that Ginny could update Ron and Hermione on the situation.

"What's happened to Harry?" Ron demanded.

"Nothing that he thinks a mountain of heroin and an ocean of Hell's Horntail won't cure." Hermione replied, grimly.

Ginny sat down and told Hermione and Ron about the destructive binge that Harry had gone on.

They both began to look appreciatively grimmer.

"So nobody really knows where he is?" Ron asked.

"I think I do. He always liked to go to the Horntail's Nest in Knockturn Alley. We used to go there two or three times a week. And since Draco's been taken out of the drugs business, that's where Harry goes to score. I know they have rooms upstairs. Living there, he can score his dope and get as much booze as he wants. He's got a reputation around the place, so nobody will really fuck with him, too much." Ginny replied.

Ron shook his head.

"I can't believe it. Poor Harry." He said.

"So we're going to go to the worst sleazy dive in the worst part of Knockturn Alley to rescue Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah." Ginny replied.

"Lovely. Well, there's no time like the present. C'mon, let's go." Hermione said.

"Hang on. Can I get an actual fucking drink down here? How about a pint of Merlin's?" Ron called to the bartender.

Merlin's was the Wizarding World's beer of choice, or at least your beer of choice if you didn't have a lot of money and you weren't too picky.

"Are you 18, yet?" the bartender asked.

"Not quite. A few more months. But I am going to go to the Horntail's Nest in Knockturn Alley to rescue my drunken gutter junkie best friend from a fate worse than death. And he's probably going to break me nose in the process." Ron replied.

"Would that be Harry Potter?" the bartended asked.

A hush fell over the room.

"Yeah. The one and only." Ron confirmed

"It's on the house." The bartender said.

Ron and Hermione were both surprised that Ginny walked into the Horntail's Nest like she owned the place.

A few of the regulars lifted their glasses to her, as she made her way to the bar.

"Hello Mick. 'Ow's business?" she inquired pleasantly of a rather large wizard with unkempt curly black hair, an eye-patch and a peg-leg with a dagger strapped to it.

"S'awright. Gettin' better. Wif this war heatin' up, more an' more o' me customers are gettin' a social conscience, not wantin' to buy dope that pours money into You-Know-'Oo's coffers. Mind, I'm about to cut urf me best customer. If I sells your 'Arry the amount of smack 'e wants, well I might as well give the poor bugger an 'ot shot an' put 'im out of 'is misery." The wizard answered.

"That's what we're here about. Mick. Well, Bill, I s'pose you got something of mine, 'ere?" Ginny said to the the bartender.

"Sure we do. An' I 'ope you lot are 'ere to get 'im. I don't want the kind of trouble in 'ere that your mate Potter 'as been makin'. Mind, 'e's olways been one o' me best customers, an when 'e gets 'is shit together, 'e's welcome back, anytime. But I can't 'ave this. Business is fallin' off. People are afraid to come in and 'ave a bleedin' drink. Most of the time Potter's like any other poor miserable gutter junkie what puts up his six knuts a week to live in one of those filthy flops. 'E comes out of 'is room, drinks 'is meals, scores, goes out every once in awhile to pick up a few bints, crawls back to bed. But sometimes, 'E comes down them steps in a towering rage, wand out, fists up and just cleans the place out. That boy's mad, and if someone don't see to 'im, I'll be findin' im in there dead at the end of one week, when I go to collect the rent. I don't want that on me conscience. E's in the last room on the left. If 'e won't go quietly, pull the red cord in the loo, an' I'll send one of the trolls." The barkeep replied.

Ginny confidently walked up the stairs, with Hermione and Ron bringing up the rear.

Rage welled up in her when she passed the room where she and Luke had their first tryst. Victory at what price? Harry's life? Luke's freedom, after he had taken the great leap of faith to switch sides? Who was going to save them?

Meanwhile, Ron went ahead and knocked on the door of the last room on the left.

"Harry? It's Ron. Me Mum and Dad want you to come stay with us. Harry?"

The door opened to reveal a very tired and worried-looking Dobby, wringing his little hands together.

"It's Harry Potter's Wheezy! And Miss Granger and Miss Wheezy! He is not here. Dobby doesn't know where he is. Dobby is so worried about Harry Potter, but he is glad now that you have come to save him. Come in, come in." he cried, his little face full of grateful happiness.

The house elf was doing his best to keep Harry's flop tidy, but the place was still a shambles.

They all sat around, awkwardly, until the sound of another house-elf voice filled the hallway.

"No, no, this way, Master. Master's room is this way. Lean on Kreacher, Master, he will help you."

"No, I've got me cane."

"Kreacher does not mind. He will help Master."

"Thank you, Kreacher. Could you open the door?"

"Of course."

Dobby had warned them all that Harry was in bad shape, but that didn't prepare them for his appearance.

He looked as though he hadn't bathed or washed his hair for days and smelled like it, too. His face was unshaven and partially obscured by two weeks of greasy, wiry brown beard. He had a big shiner that swelled one eye shut, and there were flecks of blood on his dirty tee shirt. His jeans were stained with mud and blood, and there was vomit on his shoes.

He leaned on a cane, dragging one leg, and on Kreacher for support.

He looked thin, his skin was greyish and his eyes were black and glassy like marbles.

Once more, his arms were full of tracks which he made no attempt to hide.

Any gains he had made had been obliterated in this latest binge, and he had sunken further into the depths of misery, depravity, and despair.

The house elf was carrying a bag from which protruded the top of a bottle of Hell's Horntail and a bag of greasy potato crisps.

"This way, Master. There's your chair. Kreacher will put away your groceries. Dobby! This place is a mess!"

"But Kreacher…"

"No buts! We must work harder. So we will. Come on. Master has company. We'll finish, later."

The two house elves left the room, and closed the door

Nobody really knew what to say to Harry.

"Oh. 'Ello. I was wondering when you'd find me. Just in time, like as not. Fate's a funny thing." Harry muttered, pleasantly enough.

"And I thought I was going to be the hairy one, with me moustache and sidies." Ron joked, trying to keep things light.

"I might keep it. I dunno. I just don't feel like shaving, anymore." Harry replied.

"So, erm, Ginny and I were wondering if you wanted to come and stay at the Burrow." Ron asked, casually.

Harry laughed, and it was an unpleasant sound.

"The Burrow? In the shape I'm in? Right. Brilliant." Harry sniped.

"Mum and Dad know all about it. They want to help you." Ron said.

Harry laughed again, and shook his head.

"Nobody can help me. It was nice to see you lot, but you had all better go. Go and leave me to it."

"Leave you to what? Killing yourself? OD'ing in this filthy flop? Not 'alf!" Hermione protested.

"It's my life, Hermione. And I don't fucking want it, anymore. I'm sick and tired of it. Let the naff sods save their own lily white arses. I've had enough. I've seen enough."

"Harry, you haven't seen what you think you have!" Hermione explained.

"Haven't I? Are you sayin' that I didn't see what I saw with me own eyes?" he asked.

"Yeah. I am."Ginny volunteered.

"Ginny!" Hermione chastised her

"Shut your pie 'ole, then! You've got yours waitin', don't you? Don't tell me not to save what's mine! Listen, Harry, I can't tell you everything. But I can tell you that things aren't the way they seem to you. You didn't see what you thought you saw in the Astronomy Tower. Right, Hermione? Hermione?"

Hermione heaved a great sigh.

"That's right. I know you won't believe us, Harry, but things are getting better. They're not what they seem at all. Please, Harry. We've come from the Order. There's a healer waiting for you at the Burrow. At least you'll have someplace to stay that's clean and safe. And you're still a registered…user, so they'll put you on methadone again, until you're better. No one is going to judge you." she agreed.

Ginny thought her invitation was a little too cold-blooded

"Thor's 'Ammer! You and Snape are a matched fuckin' set! Neither of you 'as an 'eart! You ought to've been in Slytherin, oughtn't you! Listen to me, Harry. Bugger the war, and Lord MouldyShorts, an' bugger fuck all everybody in the world. I don't want you to die. I need you."

"That's right, Harry. What would our Ginny do without you? And I need you, too. You're my best friend." Ron protested.

"Please, Harry. We're your friends. We love you. Ginny's right. Bugger the whole sodding thing. You can't just up and fucking die and leave us. If there's dying to be done, we'll go out fighting, and we'll all go down together, but not like this Harry. Please try." Hermione agreed

"For us, mate. For your friends." Ron finished.

Harry looked over at Ron.

"You're not ashamed of me, are you?' he asked.

"Of course not. Me brother Charlie's in WAND. These things happen. People 'ave problems, yunno? That's why the have rehabs, and things." Ron said.

The House Elves, who had been listening at the door, came running in.

"Please, Master. Kreacher knows that Master Sirius would not have wanted you to live this way. And he certainly would not have wanted you to die this way." Kreacher entreated him.

"Dobby will come too. He will help you, Harry Potter." Dobby volunteered.

"Don't I always look after yer, Harry? You can trust me." Ginny assured Harry.

She sat down on the other side of him, and he leaned on her.

"I'll look after you, Harry. I promise I will. I swear down to the darkest part of me black little 'eart." She told him.

"Okay. I'll go. I suppose I need to see some kind of doctor. About me leg. It hasn't been right since I smashed up Uncle Vernon's car. Is he awright? I smashed him up, too. An' me Aunt. I feel 'orrible about that. I never beat up a woman, before." Harry replied.

"They're alright. Your Aunt and Uncle sent you twenty quid, and she did your laundry, and asked us to give you some pie and chips. They forgive you, and they want you to go get help." Ginny told Harry.

Harry sat on his bed and ate his pie and chips.

"I can't go like this. I'll have to change."

Harry just stood up, and took off his tee shirt and his jeans, and limped about, naked, looking for some clean clothes.

The first thing they noticed were the dirty, bloody bandages around his leg, but, glaringly obvious to his friends was a massive goblin tattoo that he didn't have before.

"Sit down, Harry! Kreacher, Dobby, please bring Harry his clothes." Hermione asked.

Ginny sat Harry down as the house elves scurried around, looking for clean clothes.

The elaborate tattoo of a phoenix in flight, specifically Fawkes, took up most of his chest.

It was extremely detailed and lifelike, and the glowing trail of red, yellow and orange flames that Fawkes rose out of and was enveloped in began on Harry's thigh and wrapped all the way around his body.

Above Fawkes' head was a perfect representation of the sword of Godric Gryffindor, and in his claws he held a scroll emblazoned with and Elvish verse in Elvish script that glowed a with the same silvery-blue fire as the sword.

Cryptically, the scroll read "Live in Pain, Die in Flame, Rise Again."

Goblin tattoos were done with a special magical ink the way wizard pictures were magically processed. They weren't just a picture in ink, they were a permanent charm on the body of the wearer, each having magical significance and properties.

They were also excruciatingly painful.

"Blimey, 'Arry, that's some fucking tattoo! I know when you make Master in the Third Degree you're expected to get a serious fucking tattoo, bit I've never even heard of anything like that! 'Ow long did that take?" Ron asked.

"18 hours of pure, unadulterated hell. But I've got a high tolerance for pain. It was unbelievably horrible. And I was sober the 'ole time. You 'ave to be." Harry proudly confirmed.

"What does it do?" Ron asked.

"What doesn't it do? The sword of Godric Gryffindor protects Harry from Expelliarmus, the flames that Fawkes is rising from make him impervious to fire, the tattoo of Fawkes protects him from any spell designed to tear or rend flesh, and the blue flame around the sword and the scroll provides him with the ability to see through glamours and other forms of magical deception." Hermione recited.

Meanwhile, Ginny just scourgified some of the cleaner filthy clothes Harry had and Kreacher handed them to him.

"Well, I figured that as long as I was going to fight Voldemort, I didn't want to reach into me pockets and come up with nothing but balls." Harry joked.

He got the shirt on, alright, but Kreacher had to help him get his bad leg into the pants.

"Dobby! Get Master's things together! We are leaving this awaful place." Kreacher ordered.

"All packed, Master." Dobby announced.

He handed Harry's cane to Kreacher and both the house elves helped him to stand up.

"Kreacher, I'm falling!"

"No you're not, Master. Kreacher will help you to the fireplace. Walk slowly, Master. Soon you'll be safe, and a Healer will fix your leg."

"And Dobby has Harry Potter's things!"

"I guess we should go, then." Harry said.

Ginny went over to him and grabbed his free hand.

She threw the floo powder into the tiny, run-down fireplace.

"The Burrow." She said.

Molly and Arthur Weasley did not think anything about Harry's appearance was funny.

The first thing Molly did was insist that Harry have a bath and a shave.

Kreacher helped him up the stairs to the bathroom, and then back down the hallway, again.

As for Harry, he was glad to be back at the Burrow, and happy to go right from the loo to the room he usually stayed in, and get into a warm, clean, comfortable bed.

He was about to fall off to sleep when he heard a sound in the hallway.

It was a jingling sound, like one of those gypsy coin and bell belts, accompanied by the clip-clop of a woman's heeled boots.

A reassuring, pleasant sort of sound.

Then, a knock on the door.

"Harry, can I come in? I'm the healer sent by the Order to look after you."

The witch had a Scouse accent, like Hermione and Snape.

"Sure. Kreacher, get the door." Harry said.

She was older, in her fifties, but the tall, willowy, black-haired witch was very beautiful. Disturbingly so.

She dressed in a sort of gypsy way, and had a very thick Scouse accent, but her voice was light and lyrical, and there was something comforting it, and her manner.

Kreacher seemed awed by her, and he actually left Harry alone with her, so she must have been someone important.

"'Ello, 'Arry. You can call me Mrs. E. We'll be seein' a lot of one another, as it looks like you need a lot of lookin' after. First, I've got your methadone for you. Yunno it tastes awful, so I've mixed it in wi' your vitamin potion. You gorra 'ave both, but why make it 'arder than it is, right? Go on, drink up."

The potion was warm, and tasted like caramel, spice and licorice.

"Tastes like candy."

"Well they do say a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. I'm gonna move yer blankets down, now so's I can 'ave a look at yer leg."

"I'm naked." Harry told her.

"If that bothers you, I can turn around while you put your y-fronts on."

"I don't mind. I don't wear y-fronts."

Eileen pulled the covers down.

"Reminds me of me husband. 'E's a true Scotsman, 'e olways wears 'is kilt and don't wear nuffin' beneath it. Even in wintertime. Walks around the 'ouse naked oll morning. It don't bother 'im. Upsets the shit out of the postman, though. That leg do look bad, 'Arry. It's broken 'ere, and 'ere , and the bone's just splintered 'ere, and torn the muscle to pieces. And that abcess, that's' the very beginning of gangerene."

"It stinks."

"I know. That's your leg rottin' away, that stink."

"I can't put any weight on it. I can't een move anymore, without Kreacher and my cane."

"Well, it's in a bad way, a real bad way. Even where the bone 'as 'ealed up, it's set up wrong. I don't know 'ow you could stand the pain. An 'igh tolerance, a lot more smack than is good for anybody, and a vat of Horntail a day, I'd wager. The bone's ruined, and yer 'ole leg's goin' bad. Right on the verge of gangrene. And that 'ole in yer arm you've been shootin' in is infected, too. I wouldn't be surprised if you 'ad a fever. Now don't bite down on this thermometer."

Harry waited with the thermometer in his mouth as he watched Mrs. E taking some potions out of her black bag.

"A hundred and 'free. Just as I suspected. Well then, 'ere's wot we'll do. A simple anti-swelling cream will fix up that eye, and a bone-repairing charm should fix your knuckles. It's that leg that bothers me. I'll 'ave to use the deboning spell on your calf, get those bad bone out. Maybe even on your thigh, as well, if it's spread. Then we'll try some phoenix tears in a suspension of dragon's blood, you don't 'ave to drink that, to heal that abcess up. And you'll need this powder here I've just mixed with some licorice root and anise seed for your fever and the infection in yer blood. 'After your fever's gone down, and you're infection's cleared up, we'll have the Skele-Gro and your leg will be as good as new. Ow's that sound?"

The way Mrs. E said it, it didn't seem too bad, but Harry hadn't realised he was so seriously ill.

"Mrs. E., do you think I might have died if I hadn't come 'ere?"

"You're a strong young man, not to be dead, already. But you would have been, before the week was out, I'd say." She replied.

"That's what I wanted. I think."

"No you didn't, 'Arry. You just wanted someone to 'elp you. I understand that. Meself, I was a pracising junkie for almost twenty years and a drunk for nearly thirty. But I'm sober now, ain't I? I did get 'elp from other people, but I learnt to 'elp meself. It's an 'ard lesson, 'Arry, but nobody loves you when you're down and out. Most junkies die waitin' for someone to save 'em." Mrs. E. told him.

"I suppose I'll have to get sober then. And quit drinkin'. What will I do for fun?" Harry asked.

"Don't look so glum, lad. Your old fellow, 'ere, wot's likely just been sittin' on yer leg and shrinkin' into nuffin' will wake up with a vengeance. You got a pretty girlfriend, an' every third bird in the Wizarding World would ski down Mount Everest naked with a carnation up 'er nose to 'ave you. I'm sure you'll 'fink of summat. " Mrs. E, replied, winking.

Harry's face reddened.

He was so busy being embarrassed, he didn't notice the deboning, and hardly tasted the potions he had to drink, although they tasted pretty good, too.

"I wish I could mix potions that tasted this good. All of mine come out tasting like shit."

"I hear you're a fairly good student in Potions. Especially after a certain Half-Blood Prince's book got into your 'ands." Mrs. E replied.

"How do you know that?" Harry asked.

"I 'ave me ways. You just get some good sleep. You've got a long way ahead of you, and one hell of a seventh year in store, so we 'ave to get you better. But don't worry. You've got Mrs. E to look after you, and the Weasleys and your Hermione as well. We'll see to you." She said.

Harry was in bed for two days, sick with the infection running through his body, and he couldn't walk on his rubbery, boneless leg.

All the bones in his leg were gangrenous, they had to come out.

When he had to go to the loo, Kreacher would help him get there, and back.

Mrs. E and Ginny wanted to help, but Kreacher wouldn't hear of it.

He didn't feel much like eating; a little soup, here and there, but in his illness and delirium from withdrawal and the high fever, he hardly knew where he was, or what was going on.

On the third day, his fever broke, and he was sitting up in bed and asking for more to eat, and the next day Mrs. E gave him the Skele-Gro.

On the fifth day, Harry got out of bed of his own accord, and, although weak, and somewhat pale, he made his way downstairs in the morning to breakfast with the Weasleys.

Everyone was happy to see him on his feet, again.

The whole family was there, even Bill, with his battle scars and his rakish new eyepatch.

The crazy bastard, it probably made women crazier over him.

It was only breakfast, but Molly had made a metric ton of food, and Harry was starving.

She kept loading up his plate, and he kept on eating.

Later, he took what he thought was a long walk by himself, in the green and rolling hills, and found that Ginny had followed him.

"'Ow's your leg?"

"Gimme your 'and."

They smiled at each other.

"I meant your other leg."

"No, you didn't."

Hermione, however, was not at breakfast; she was not at the Burrow at all.

She had returned to the Land Beyond the Forest, and a cottage deep in the Carpathians, to give Severus Snape a full report.

"Good. Now Albus can have his war."

"What do you mean, his war, Snape?"

"When it's time to move against Tom Riddle, that's my war. And Potter's."


End file.
